This absorbing collection of letters spans a decade in the lifelong friendship of two remarkable writers who engaged the subjects of literature, race, and identity with deep clarity and passion.

The correspondence begins in 1950 when Ellison is living in New York City, hard at work on his enduring masterpiece, Invisible Man, and Murray is a professor at Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. Mirroring a jam session in which two jazz musicians "trade twelves" -- each improvising twelve bars of music around the same musical idea-their lively dialog centers upon their respective writing, the jazz they both love so well, on travel, family, the work literary contemporaries (including Richard Wright, James Baldwin, William Faulkner and Ernest Hemingway) and the challenge of racial inclusiveness that they wish to pose to America through their craft. Infused with warmth, humor, and great erudition, Trading Twelvesoffers a glimpse into literary history in the making -- and into a powerful and enduring friendship.

• We started tracking this book on January 29, 2013.
• This book was $11.99 when we started tracking it.
• The price of this book has changed 24 times in the past 4,388 days.
• The current price of this book is $10.99 last checked 3 hours ago.
• This book is at its lowest price in the past 90 days.
• This lowest price this book has been offered at in the past year is $9.99.
• The lowest price to date was $8.99 last reached on August 31, 2020.
• This book has been $8.99 one time since we started tracking it.
• The highest price to date was $12.99 last reached on July 31, 2023.
• This book has been $12.99 5 times since we started tracking it.

• Literature & Fiction

• Text-to-Speech: Disabled
• Lending: Disabled
• File Size: 3,856 KB